Apple iPhone 14 Plus review

Two rear cameras, one selfie

The iPhone 14 Plus has three cameras, just like the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14. There are two at the back - a 12MP wide-angle primary and a 12MP ultrawide-angle secondary. There is also a 12MP front camera for selfies. And while it seems that nothing has changed since the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13, the primary and the selfie cameras have been upgraded.

The primary 12MP camera has been lifted from the iPhone 13 Pro. This means it now has a larger sensor when compared to the iPhone 13's, with larger 1.9µm pixels and a brighter f/1.5 aperture for the 26mm lens. This camera relies on sensor-shift stabilization.

Then there is the 12MP ultrawide camera, with its 120-degree field of view and f/2.4 aperture. It seems to be identical to the ultrawide on the vanilla iPhone 12 and iPhone 13, so we expect similar performance.

The 12MP selfie camera is arguably the biggest improvement to the camera setup on the vanilla iPhone because of the addition of phase detection autofocus and what seems to be optical image stabilization. The 23mm lens has been improved with a new brighter f/1.9 aperture.

Camera app and features

The viewfinder has been mostly the same since the iOS 13 and the iPhone 11 - you can see outside of the viewfinder thanks to the precise calibration of the three cameras that allows seeing what will be left outside of the frame in real-time.

The Apple image processing includes all legacy features (Smart HDR, Night Mode, and Deep Fusion), but the big deal is the Photonic Engine. That's just a fancy name for Apple's latest HDR stacking technology and promises 2x improvement in mid- to low-light conditions.

Deep Fusion triggers instead of Smart HDR and Night Mode when light conditions are not ideal, but it's not that dark just yet. Deep Fusion uses frames before you hit the shutter, more frames once you do, and one long exposure shot. The Neural engine will select the best frames and create a high-quality HDR photo that is very detailed, sharp, and more natural looking. The Neural processor's machine learning process analyzes the image being taken and processes them differently depending on what's in the frame - say, sky, foliage, or skin tones. Meanwhile, structure and color tones are based on ratios obtained by the Neural unit on the Apple CPU.

The Night Mode icon pops up automatically when a low-light scene presents itself, and you will see the seconds suggested next to the Night Mode icon. You can choose longer exposure or altogether disable the Night Mode.

As usual, all cameras talk to each other, so they already know the correct exposure and tone mapping settings when you switch between them. This applies to both stills and videos.

The camera interface is mostly unchanged unless we count the new 2x toggle between 1x and 3x. The macro toggle appears automatically if you are close enough for such a photo.

You swipe between modes and have a couple of settings you can uncover with an upward swipe - flash, night mode, live photo, photo aspect, exposure compensation, and filters. In video mode, you can change the resolution and frame rate from the viewfinder.

Camera app

Portrait mode is available on the main, tele and selfie cameras.

There is this feature called Photographic Styles which automatically edits a photo, one element at a time (applying different corrections to the subject and background, for example). You can choose between Standard, Rich Contrast, Vibrant, Warm, and Cool. You can tune each of these modes to your liking and set your preferred one as default. It's like filters but more permanent.

Camera options

Cinematic Mode is present, and it now supports 4K HDR at 24fps and 30fps. It does automatic rack focus, but the phone records a depth map alongside the video, so you can change the focus point manually after the fact. Editing such videos is possible in iMovie and Clips apps.

Finally, there is also Action mode, which is intended to be used with the ultrawide camera at 2.8K@60fps, though you can use any rear camera and any resolution and frame rate. It heavily crops from the 4K stabilized footage to mimic an action camera output.

Photo quality

The photos we took with the 12MP primary camera on the iPhone 14 Plus are similar to what we got from the iPhone 14 Pro, as well as all iPhones since iPhone 11 or so. There is plenty of resolved detail, no noise, accurate white balance and color presentation, and high contrast.

The dynamic range across all scenes is good, but not over the top as Apple's camera tends to produce high-contrast photos. This means there will be clipped highlights or underdeveloped shadows, but these are arguably more true-to-life.

And while the photo quality is consistent in spite of the sensor used, this means the unpleasant stuff is also inherited. Yes, we are talking about the overprocessed rendition of complex detail like foliage and people. While the detail outresolves the sensor, oversharpening the whole thing is not the correct approach, that's for sure.

Main camera, 12MP

The ultrawide photos are impressively wide with proficient distortion correction. Their resolved detail is great for such a camera and lens, and the noise is kept tolerably low. The processing is similar to the primary camera - accurate colors even if a bit unexciting, high contrast, and adequate but not excessive dynamic range. The noise is kept low, too.

The problems with foliage and people are present here, too, but they are less evident because of the wider field of view. The foliage is still oversharpened or oil-painting-like at times but better looking, nevertheless.

Ultrawide camera, 12MP

The 12MP portrait shots from the main camera offer excellent subject separation and likable blur. The person is well-exposed, with natural tones and accurate colors. The contrast is great.

The HDR often gets in the way and smears some fine detail, as the subjects aren't too detailed. But we are glad the noise reduction is gentler, as this could have been worse. But we aren't fans of the rendition, which either over-sharpens or smears random detail like hair, eyebrows, and beards.

Portraits, 12MP

The main camera on the iPhone 14 Plus takes excellent photos with the help of the Auto Night Mode, which usually chooses 1s exposure. The photos are well-exposed, incredibly detailed, clean of noise, and with superb color saturation. Their contrast is high, just like in the daylight photos, and the dynamic range is reasonable though clipped highlights and underexposed shadows are present.

Overall, solid performance for the main camera and flagship-grade photos that are not overly bright as some competitive Night Mode solutions tend to deliver.

Main camera Auto Night, 12MP

You can opt out of the Night mode, which will dial down on the color saturation and introduce a bit more noise. The shadows also become a bit darker as the dynamic range gets a bit lower. While the low-light photo quality is still great, we'd stick to the Auto Night Mode for sure.

Main cam Night Mode OFF, 12MP

The 12MP shots taken with the ultrawide camera with Auto Night Mode are usable. The exposure is good, and so is the dynamic range, while the color saturation is great. But all photos are soft and noisy, which makes them usable but nothing special, really.

Ultrawide camera Auto NM, 12MP

This last bunch of photos was taken with the ultrawide camera but without Night Mode. They are quite bad - soft, smeared and noisy, with low detail, low dynamic range, and desaturated colors. You can barely see what's on them.

UW cam Night Mode OFF, 12MP

You can also look at our photo compare tool and see how the Apple iPhone 14 Plus stands against other phones in the controlled environment of our test lab.

Apple iPhone 14 Plus vs. Samsung Galaxy S22+ and the Xiaomi 12T Pro in our Photo compare tool

Selfies

The selfie camera on the iPhone 14 quartet has seen a massive upgrade over the iPhone 13 one - it now supports autofocus and comes with a brighter f/1.9 aperture lens. Its sensor size and the lens field of view remained the same, though.

The camera still offers two FoV settings in the viewfinder - the slightly zoomed-in 7MP crop that is equivalent to a 30mm field of view and the full 12MP mode, which has a 23mm equivalent FoV.

If you hold the phone in portrait orientation, selfies are cropped to 7MP to provide a tighter framing but rotate the phone horizontally, and you get more of the scene with the phone automatically switching to the wider 12MP mode. You can also switch between those two modes manually by tapping on the arrows near the shutter button.

The 12MP selfies we shot on the iPhone 14 Plus are excellent - there is plenty of resolved detail, low noise, high sharpness and impressive dynamic range. The white balance is spot-on with true-to-life colors. The contrast is high, as usual.

The autofocus works great, too, and we never had an out-of-focus photo.

The Apple's processing gets once again in the way of class-leading photo quality with its excessive sharpening across various facial features (hair, beard). And then comes the smoothing algorithm, which may further smear some parts.

Don't get this wrong, the selfies are solid, but we did expect more potent processing.

Selfies, 12MP

The selfie photos are great, too. The front camera gets assistance from the structured-light 3D scanner. Thanks to the detailed depth map, the subject separation and the defocused background are among the best you can see on a selfie today. The photo quality is a match to the regular selfie photos - very good, but not the best, as the processing is inadequate at times.

Just like before, these portraits are shot in 7MP, meaning the camera crops a part of its available FoV and shows a zoomed-in shot. There is no option to shoot 23mm 12MP selfie portraits, unfortunately.

Portrait selfies, 12MP

Video quality

The iPhone 14 Plus can record video at up to 4K60 with all of its three cameras. 4K24 is also available across the board if you're after a more cinematic motion look. All videos are digitally (all three cams) stabilized and optically (all but ultrawide) - Apple calls this cinematic video stabilization. All modes, including the 4K60, feature expanded dynamic range thanks to the Smart HDR. The slow-mo options max out at 1080p at 240fps.

There is a new option called Enhanced stabilization, which is an enhancement over the default EIS and crops a bit more to deliver even more stabilized footage. We shot with and without this new option, and honestly, besides the small promised crop, we did not see any difference.

The new iPhone 14 Plus supports Cinematic mode (rack focus) now up to 4K at 30fps. HDR is also an option.

There is one new mode called Action mode. It's been on many other phones for years, and it is intended to be shot at the ultrawide camera at 60fps. It crops heavily from the 4K footage (that's why the resolution is 2K) and delivers super smooth and incredibly stabilized video. It is available to all rear cameras and can be shot at any resolution and frame rate, but, as we pointed out, its main hardware is the ultrawide camera at 2K@60fps.

You can capture HDR videos straight into the Dolby Vision format up to the same maximum 4K60 (the previous generation was limited to 30fps). You can edit these videos on the go on your phone, you can upload them on YouTube or any other popular platform, or even send them to your friends. The Dolby Vision information is saved outside of the video stream, so the video will look normal to any non-HDR player/screen and will be color-boosted on any Dolby Vision-compatible player and display.

You also have a choice between H.265 HEVC and H.264 video encoders. The High-Efficiency mode uses H.265 and is mandatory for 4K60 and HDR footage, while the More Compatible mode (H.264) provides easier playback across different devices.

The iPhone 14 Plus, just like the previous iPhones, capture wide stereo audio for videos at about 190kbps.

The iPhones have been known for their class-leading video quality and stabilization capabilities, and the iPhone 14 Plus is no different. Even with the always-on electronic stabilization, which usually softens other videos, the iPhones still deliver outstanding video quality.

The main camera captures class-leading 4K30 videos with a ton of resolved detail and natural rendition without any traces of over-sharpening. The footage is clean of noise, the dynamic range is great, and so is the contrast.

The colors across the clips stay lively and true to life. If you decide to shoot in 24fps or 60fps - you will get the same quality; the videos will be just lower or larger in size because of the video bitrate difference.

The low-light videos from the main camera are also great, with plenty of resolved detail and natural-looking sharpness. The exposure is good, and the noise is nicely low. We liked the lively color saturation and the higher-than-average contrast, while the dynamic range keeps the footage looking realistic.

The iPhones' ultrawide cameras shoots the best 4K videos, and that's true for the iPhone 14 Plus, too. It offers high resolved detail, outstanding processing and color rendition.

The ultrawide videos are noise-free and with high contrast. There is also no visible distortion around the corners, and yet the field of view remains impressively wide.

The 4K low-light videos from the ultrawide camera are usable as they offer good enough exposure and color presentation. The detail is a bit low, though, and there is visible noise. The videos are rather dark but still usable.

The action mode works just as promised, delivering lovely 60fps videos with a 2,816 x 1,584 px resolution and superb action-like stabilization and excellent smoothness. Detail, colors, contrast and dynamic range are praise-worthy, too.

You can shoot Action video with the main camera, too. And while it yields the same quality of stabilization and picture, the narrower field of view makes it look a bit awkward.

Finally, the 4K videos from the improved selfie camera are superb. There is naturally defocused background thanks to the new f/1.9 aperture lens, and the autofocus capabilities, of course. The subject is sharp and well exposed, the colors are superb, and so is the contrast. The dynamic range is quite natural-looking, too.

Looking up close, the subjects are still a bit overprocessed as the regular selfies, but that's not as visible here, and the videos remain among the best you can get from a selfie camera today.

You can also look at our video compare tool and see how the iPhone 14 Plus stacks against other phones.

4K: Apple iPhone 14 Plus vs. Samsung Galaxy S22+ and the Xiaomi 12T Pro in our Video compare tool